CANADA - G-20 leaders pledge support for Haiti

TORONTO, Canada (CMC):

The leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies, the G-20, say they are committed to help Haiti rebuild and recover from the catastrophic earthquake that severely damaged the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country in January.

"We stand united with the people of Haiti ... and we join other donors in providing assistance in this difficult time, including through the Haiti Reconstruction Fund set up by the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations," said a communiqué issued following June 26-27 G-20 summit in Muskoka, north of here.

Haiti's president Rene Préval and Jamaica's prime minister Bruce Golding attended the meeting.

The G-20 leaders noted that to ensure that Haiti's recovery efforts can focus on its reconstruction action plan, rather than the debt obligations of its past, their finance ministers agreed last April to support full cancellation of Haiti's debts to all international financial institutions.

"We are pleased that an agreement on a framework for cancelling such debt has been reached at the IMF; the World Bank, the International Fund for Agriculture Development, and soon at the Inter-American Development Bank," the communiqué stated.

The G-20 leaders also promised to "contribute our fair shares of the associated costs as soon as possible" and to report on progress at their next summit in the South Korean capital, Seoul.

Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, bore the brunt of the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck on January 12. Many buildings were reduced to rubble in the capital and surrounding areas, killing as many as 300,000 people and leaving more than a million others homeless.